Elf on the Shelf

One of Jared's coworkers told me about the Elf on the Shelf at last year's Christmas party.  I asked Santa to send us one.  He arrived about a week before Thanksgiving.  Our elf's name is Peter, and it is his job to watch Luke and Micah and report back to Santa each night to let Santa know if they have been naughty or nice.  Hopefully Santa will be pretty forgiving because Peter has seen a lot of interesting things and been privy to some interesting conversations such as, "Micah, I've told you time and again.  YOU CAN'T PEE IN THE DRAIN OUTSIDE!  YOU NEED TO COME INSIDE AND USE THE TOILET!"  One time Luke was doing something he's not supposed to and I told him, "Peter can see you!"  Luke just replied, "No he can't.  He's looking the other way."  It's true.  He was looking the other way.  So even though the motivation might not be all it could be, it's still fun to find Peter each morning.  And the conversations about Peter have been very fun.  Luke wants to know how he moves around and how he gets out of the house and how he comes back in.  What does Peter eat?  What does Peter do while we're gone?  Etc, etc, etc.  So if you don't have an elf and your kids are old enough to get it, then get one.  Pretty fun!

Missing Top Teeth

Sometime in November Luke lost his first top tooth.  He is scared to wiggle his teeth, so they will be loose for months before they finally just drop out.  It happened while he was home sick.  Luke is wearing his backpack, not because he is coming home from school, but because his new backpack arrived in the mail.  With his birthday money from Mima and Papa, he got a Lightning McQueen backpack, and with his birthday money from Grandpa and Grandma he got a matching lunchbox.  His old backpack ripped, so we actually ordered his new one a couple weeks before his birthday.

Looks pretty different, huh?

Family Trip to Blessington Farms

My friend Carrie introduced the boys and I to Blessington Farms last spring break.  The boys had asked to go back several times.  Finally, the first weekend in November, we made it back.  And Dad got to come too!

Blessington Farms is a working farm that is also an outside play land.  The boys (all of them!) loved the big slides.

Luke's favorite thing was the pedal cars.  He kept wanting to go back.  When we went over spring break, Micah wasn't big enough to reach any of the pedals, but this time he was tall enough to reach them on the smallest cars.

Micah wanted to ride the barrel train, but he also didn't want to wait in line.  There was 1 empty barrel, so I put him in with a stranger.  Good thing he didn't care.

While Micah jumped on some hay bales, Luke pulled Jared around in this wagon.  Pretty tough!

We also had a picnic by the pond, went on the hay ride, visited the barn, and dug in the sand mountain. I just didn't get pictures of those things.  It was a very fun day!